


Where We Belong

by beadedslipper



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, John really needs a hug, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6714166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadedslipper/pseuds/beadedslipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has only ever wanted to be kept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Belong

**Author's Note:**

> My very first Person of Interest fanfic!

No one in his life has ever kept him.  Not for himself, John.  Only one person had ever even wanted to try and he failed her more completely and finally than he has ever failed anyone in his life.

The army kept him for his loyalty and his willingness to follow orders, but it wasn’t belonging, not really.  To them he was a statistic, another nameless, faceless body in ten thousand nameless, faceless bodies for them to throw against an impenetrable wall until something stuck.

The CIA was more complex, as they always were.  They kept him, cultivated and manipulated him for his cunning and his ability to move unseen regardless of his surroundings and despite being a six foot tall, imposingly built white man.  They wanted him for his ability to keep a secret and to lie convincingly, even to himself.  That last one is what earned him a bullet in the gut in an abandoned laboratory in China.

Even Jessica, the person who tried the hardest to keep him, wanted a facsimile of who he really was.  She saw the stalwart soldier, the protector, but when he became the spy, when he began to fall into darkness, it was too much for her.  It turned out to be too much for them both.

Mr. Harold Finch, or whatever his name actually is, isn’t any different than all the ones who came before.  John knows this in the same way that he knows that the sky is blue, that not cleaning his guns will get him killed, and that there are surer, slower ways to die than by a bullet.

Mr. Finch wants from him what everyone has wanted before; the blood on his hands and the morality in his heart.

It’s a logical enough conclusion.  Despite his best efforts, and his not inconsequential interrogation training, Finch manages to keep absolutely every detail of a personal nature from Reese.  Every tool at Reese’s disposal falls on deaf ears where Finch is concerned.  _“Don’t call me Mr. Reese.  I’ll call you.”_

This is how Reese knows that Finch sees him as a weapon, a tool.  Maybe a conveniently sentient one, but still just a necessary acquisition in order to carry out the crusade his precious machine has inadvertently set him.  The man won’t even admit what kind of eggs he likes for fear that John will divine some terrible truth from it.

Regardless of what Finch wants, the man has saved him from a cold and lonely death at the bottom of a whiskey bottle and for that he’s earned John’s loyalty whether he wants it or not.  John develops an attachment to his employer despite his best efforts and against his better judgment.  It’s a mistake he’s made a dozen times over.  It will probably finally manage to get him killed this time.

Over days and weeks it stops being about just finding what makes the man tick, at least completely, and starts becoming about cultivating this tentative bond that John has unwittingly found.  John has been alone for so long.  He’s happy to take what he can get from Finch.  Even if Finch only sees him as a tool, at least he makes sure John is well-maintained.  A nebulous, imbalanced friendship is, shockingly, better than no friendship at all.

John finds he wants to do nice things for Finch, to make him happy, just because he can.  Donuts and tea that finch actually likes and setting Fusco on him just to make sure he gets around the city safely.  He doesn’t harbor any illusions of Finch developing the same level of affection towards John.  Why would he want to?  John knows what he is and, if what he says is true and he does know everything about John, so does Finch, which means he must know about the monster that lives inside John’s chest and in his brain.

No one wants John, not really.  And, John knows, no one should.

He is prepared, truly, to die when providence finally finds him on the roof of a parking garage wearing the face of Mark Snow.

Finch’s voice in his ear is the sweetest kind of torture as he stumbles, bloody and sweating and pale as death, down the stairwell.  He means it with every fiber of his being when he tells the stubborn man to stay away, to stay safe.

Finch’s safety has become – necessary to Reese.  Necessary in the same way as oxygen.

Only the sound of an engine pushed to its limits is his answer.

He forces himself to stay awake, through the frantic car ride, through their arrival at the morgue, through the negotiation with the doctor Finch has somehow found because, even if he is little better than death warmed over, he can still _see_ a threat coming.  He can still warn Finch, even if he can’t do anything to stop it.  He can still be useful, he can still protect.  So he stays awake until the drugs take the decision away from him.

It is only when he actually wakes up and sees the relief evident on his employer’s face that Reese is forced to reevaluate what he was sure was a foregone conclusion.  Perhaps, maybe, Finch actually could, actually does, care for John as more than a tool in his private campaign to save the ordinary people of New York.

The objective changes then because, as much as it makes John’s heart race to imagine that Finch might feel that way, that doesn’t change the truth of John himself.  The definition of protecting Finch expands to include protecting him from a deeper attachment to John.

In retrospect he doesn’t execute that part of the orders he’s given himself very well.  He can’t seem to help it.  He pokes at Finch like he always has, but it escalates the way things do when you’re comfortable with someone, when you trust them with your life.  He prods and teases.  He flirts, though he tries for a long time to keep from putting that word to it.

But John is, at his core, an honest man.  It’s why he struggled so much with accepting the harsh truths of the CIA.  So eventually he is forced to admit it, if only to himself.

More time passes.  They save more people.  John falls more in love with Finch.  Even though he still barely knows the man, could fill only a single page – if that – with information, he now also _knows_ Finch.

He knows the way Finch looks when he’s tired, that’s a familiar one, or when he’s scared.  When he gets frustrated there’s a little wrinkle to the left of his mouth that becomes more pronounced and, on more than one occasion, John has fought the urge to wipe that wrinkle away.  Sometimes by the use of his own mouth.

He knows that Finch prefers anything except chocolate icing on his donuts.  That works out because John would rather have chocolate above anything else.  He knows the shape of Finch’s hands and the rhythm of his walk, times his own heartbeat to match until whatever distance between them is only enough to keep Harold comfortable.  Even that distance is the width of a breath.

Finch, in his turn, begins to look at John where John can see.  Long, appraising looks interspersed with rare, precious ones of warmth and affection that John keeps close to his heart.  He pulls them out on particularly difficult days.  They orbit ever closer to one another.

Then Finch is just – gone.  Taken.  John’s world, so fragilely reconstructed by the careful hands of a small man in glasses, comes tumbling down and he is prepared to tear anything, everything, apart to rebuild it again.

The terror he feels, after unraveling the clever tab-code message that Finch leaves behind, is the same that he has felt in combat, with enemy ordinance flying like a swarm of cicadas above his head.  It’s that terror of not being good enough, not being fast enough.  Of being too late.  It’s that fear that almost has him braining himself on a column in Julie Davenport’s little love nest as he races out to get to the train station.

It is this terror that serves as the impetus to finally do something.

Harold is safe now.  John has acquired him and they are currently recuperating in a hotel somewhere off I-95.  Root is back in the wind, John will have to deal with that eventually, but right now he’s only concerned with making sure that Harold is okay.

He bustles around their room, closing the blinds, unpacking bottled water and some gas station food that looked mildly edible.  He tries not to look at Harold, afraid Harold will see the need in his eyes.  He doesn’t want to burden Harold, doesn’t want to take advantage, especially not now when Harold is so fragile.

“Thank you for coming to find me Mr. Reese.” Harold says from his seat at the foot of the bed.

“You’ve got nothing to thank me for Finch.  Couldn’t do what we do without you.” John might sound like he’s referring to their mission, but he is quite sincerely trying to say that he, himself, needs Harold and cannot do this, life, without him.  Not anymore.  Smart as he is, Finch reads between the lines well enough.

Finch’s gaze is shrewd as he, probably, calculates all the possible ramifications.  Finally though, he says,  “I believe you should stay with me Mr. Reese.”

John takes two steps forward and falls to his knees before Harold.  “If I stay, will you keep me?” John whispers, sounding like he’s begging and not caring.

“No.” Harold replies.  John’s stomach drops into his shoes and plans are already swirling in his head, get up, leave, obtain liquor, flee the country, when Harold’s hand falls on his bent head.  John looks up to see Harold, tenderness and hope and fierce possession in his eyes.  “I will cherish you.”

Harold guides him gently into bed, as broken animal sounds eschew from John’s chest.  He tugs John close until John slots himself against Harold like they are a puzzle made of only two pieces.

He fits and, when Harold wraps his hand around John’s wrist, he belongs.

**Author's Note:**

> I fell hard and fast for this show. I blame John Reese's voice. I came back to hear those sultry tones in my ears and stayed when I realized how awesome these characters are. All the little moments between cases are just beyond words. They make me happy and they need to be happy too. Thank god for fanfic.


End file.
